In the Spotlight: The Feet Say Run by Daniel A. Blum

Title: THE FEET SAY RUN

Author: Daniel A. Blum

Publisher: Gabriel’s Horn Press

Pages: 349

Genre: Literary Fiction

At the age of eighty-five, Hans Jaeger finds himself a castaway among a group of survivors on a deserted island.  What is my particular crime?  he asks.   Why have I been chosen  for this fate?  And so he begins his extraordinary chronicle. 

It would be an understatement to say he has lived a full life.  He has grown up in Nazi Germany and falls in love with Jewish girl.  He fights for the Germans on two continents, watches the Reich collapse spectacularly into occupation and starvation, and marries his former governess.  After the war he goes on wildflower expeditions in the Alps, finds solace among prostitutes while his wife lay in a coma, and marries a Brazilian chambermaid in order to receive a kidney from her. 

By turns sardonic and tragic and surreal, Hans’s story is the story of all of the insanity, irony and horror of the modern world itself.  

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Book Excerpt:

It was early November.  November 5, to be exact.  1938.   I was with Hilda when we heard the news over the radio.  A German diplomat had been shot.  By a Jew.  We’d never heard of this diplomat.  Who had?  But suddenly it was all over the news.  This abominable act!  Committed not just by a Jew.  But, rather, by the Jews.  This high crime!  For a few days the diplomat clung to life.    But the fury of the official broadcasts was astonishing.  The demands for revenge.  And then, on the day I had marked for my next visit with Sylvia, this obscure diplomat, now elevated to the level of a great personage, died of his wounds—martyred himself for the cause of all of us violated Germans.

Hilda and I just looked at one another.

“I think you need to get her out now,” Hilda said.  And then, “If you’re going to do it.”

I nodded.

The wireless was broadcasting stories of rioting breaking out all over Germany.  Anti-Jewish rage.  Synagogues torched.  Storefronts smashed.  From inside Hilda’s apartment though, we heard nothing.  It was like any other night.  Would it really spread to our quiet little town?

I left for Sylvia’s before midnight.  The crooked alleys in Hilda’s neighborhood were all calm.  Maybe none of it was true.  There were people out here and there, maybe more than usual —groups of threes and fours, mostly drawn out by the news, wondering what they would see.  But it was a chilly night, and that seemed to keep people moving.

As I walked toward the river I could hear more voices.  And then there was something.  A lamp store.  Brodsky’s Lamps and Lampshades.  Smashed to ruins.  Shards of glass everywhere.  Just as the radio had described it.  Why had it happened here though?  What was this strange, magical connection between the radio and this pile of debris?   Is that what it means to be a social species, that we will simply do what we believe others are doing?  We hear words on the radio, people are destroying Jewish businesses, and like pre-programmed automatons, we interpret this message as an instruction?

I moved on, walked along old streets, under medieval arches, and out to the less ancient, less huddled part of town.  Across all of it was a sort of crystalline quiet.  A milkman’s wagon passed —the horse clopping and snorting.  Along the next block I scared up a yard of chickens, startled myself with the sudden clucking and scattering.  Peaceful Edelburg.  My storybook town.

 I was most of the way to Sylvia’s when I approached something again.  A commotion.  I drew closer.   A crowd of figures, milling around a square, Vanderplatz.  Watching something.  Watching what?  There were voices.  Shouts.  I approached.   Peeked through a pair of shoulders.   A man was being pushed by several men.  They were shouting at him.  Trying to get him to push back.  He was older, had a frightened face, kept trying to back away, but there was always someone behind him, giving him another shove.  His hair was disheveled.  Beside them, on the ground, was a hat that had evidently been knocked off his head.  What did they want from him? 

A woman, who seemed to be his wife, was restrained by two other men.  One had her arms.  The other had a hand in her hair.  She was crying, protesting.  She wore a heavy coat that bunched in the neck as they pried her arms back.  When she spoke, the hand in her hair drove her down lower, until at last she was on her knees, and drool was dripping from her mouth.  Now the man protested the woman’s treatment, begged on her behalf, and this resulted in a fist hitting his stomach.  He bent over, breathless, as other blows started to land on him.

What an unreal quality it had though.  This one little act.  This one droplet of cruelty amid the sea that seemed to be sweeping the country.  You could even sense a kind of self-consciousness among the perpetrators.  Acting out this bit of violence, getting themselves comfortable with it, acclimated to it, this act that they had heard was happening everywhere, trying this new thing out, yet having trouble identifying this old couple, these actual people, with the criminal Juden of the broadcasts.

And then, after the first blow, how much easier it seemed, the next punches coming so much more naturally, the hatred starting to feed on itself, the inner pleasure at inflicting pain.  Yes!  This was going to be a beautiful thing, this new violence!  It was just a question of adjusting to it.  That the victims were old and helpless, that there was nothing that they had actually done to deserve it that anyone could name—wasn’t that really part of the joy?  Wasn’t that liberating in some way?  Because if you could beat these people, punch their elderly faces and kick their sides, with all these others watching, doing nothing to stop it, didn’t that give you a kind of power, not merely over your victims, but over everybody, everything?  Could you not take it even farther, see how far it could go?

There were maybe only six or seven young men actually involved in tormenting this couple, and maybe sixty or seventy watching silently.  Many no doubt shocked, horrified, wishing it would stop.  But silent as an audience watching a performance in a theatre.  Silent as a group of schoolchildren watching a bully pick on someone smaller and weaker.  Each thinking maybe now someone should stop this.  It has gone on long enough.  Someone should intercede.  But who?  How?  Others just incorporating it.  Accepting it.  Who knew.

And then there was that awkward moment.  That end without an end—the victims just lying there bloodied.  The beating done.  Only there was no curtain to lower upon the scene.  And that lack of a proper ending seemed to reveal, even to the perpetrators, the pointlessness of what they had done.  Did they just walk away?  Bow to their audience?  What?  At last it occurred to one of them to spit on the couple.  And then the others recognized the virtue of this, and added their spit.  And their beads of spit landed like hateful, little exclamations points on their victims.  And thus having found a suitable denouement, they turned away, headed off, whooping, breaking into some Nazi song—as though it were the final number in a musical.

Kristallnacht had come to Edelburg. 

For a while the crowd stayed where it was, looked on at those two heaps of suffering, as though still expecting something more to happen.  Wondering if it is over.  Wondering if they should offer assistance, call the police, deposit their own spit.  In the end though, they did none of these.  Instead they just watched for a while more and wandered off, left to sort out their own thoughts.

I was one of the last to leave.  I watched them stagger up.  Alive.  Moaning.  I briefly caught the man’s eye.  At least someone get him his hat, I thought.  But I didn’t.  I left.  Just as the others had.

Just a few more blocks to Sylvia’s, and now I felt even more urgently the need to reach her.  I was aware of forms passing this way and that.  More than would normally have been out at that hour.  I heard muffled voices.  But it was difficult to see very much.  The night was moonless.  Who were they?  It was hard to make out.

I waited across the street for a while, until it seemed there was nobody around.  Then I slipped around the back of Sylvia’s house and tossed a pebble at the window.   A moment later I was inside.  I was in her arms.  That same shocking nakedness through her nightgown.  Pressed against her.  We tiptoed up to her room, just as we had on my last visit.  I undressed.  Slipped into her bed.   At first I was still seeing that scene at Vanderplatz that I had witnessed.  That vignette.  And then in another instant it was gone.  As though a great wave came over consciousness itself, obliterating everything.  Because how could this beautiful sensation and that horrid memory coexist?  Or maybe I just willed it away.  I just wanted the pureness of the moment.  No past and no future.   No words.  Just the sensation, the great ocean-wave of desire, flooding everything.  So that when the bed creaked it was as though reality itself had given us a little nudge.  No, you cannot forget me.  I am right outside.  I am waiting for you.

About the Author

Daniel A. Blum grew up in New York, attended Brandeis University and currently lives outside of Boston with his family. His first novel Lisa33 was published by Viking in 2003. He has been featured in Poets and Writers magazine, Publisher’s Weekly and most recently, interviewed in Psychology Today.

Daniel writes a humor blog, The Rotting Post, that has developed a loyal following.

His latest release is the literary novel, The Feet Say Run.

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Are You There, Krishna? Book Trailer Reveal

We're happy to host Rachel Khona's ARE YOU THERE, KRISHNA? IT'S ME, RESHMA, OR RACHEL. OR WHATEVER Book Trailer Reveal today! Enjoy the trailer!

About the Book:

Title: ARE YOU THERE KRISHNA? IT'S ME, RESHMA. OR RACHEL. OR WHATEVER.: ESSAYS ON TALKING TO GHOSTS, ACCOSTING CELEBRITIES, GETTING HIGH, SEXISM, RACE AND FIRST-GENERATION WOES
Author: Rachel Khona
Publisher: Thought Catalog
Pages: 257
Genre: Humor/Memoir

Rachel knew even as a young child that she wasn’t like the rest of her Indian family. While her parents were plotting how she could make it into med school with her mediocre grades in chemistry and biology, she had other things on her mind, including such gems as:

• Why can’t she go to the temple on her period?
• Why don’t her Indian cousins like her?
• Why was it OK to be sexualized at a beauty pageant but not for herself?
• How can she straddle two cultures while retaining her sense of self?
• Why are women considered sluts and men considered studs?
• Why do people keep asking her if she was born in India?
• Should she wax down there?
• Why does she have crazy eyes?

After leaving home, Rachel got high in Amsterdam, met her pop singer idol in a bathroom, argued with a ghost, and got lost in the Pyrenees. But that didn’t stop her from questioning while men still tell her to smile. 'Are You There Krishna? It’s Me, Reshma. Or Rachel. Or Whatever.' weaves stories of Rachel’s life with observations on race, class, sex, feminism, and culture with humor and candor.

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About the Author

Once upon a time in an exotic land called New Jersey, Rachel Khona used to dream of one day playing tambourine in an all-girl rock band. That never happened.

Instead she became a writer. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Playboy, Penthouse, Maxim, and Cosmopolitan among others.

When she’s not writing or designing, she is busy drinking wine and singing off key, bike riding, pretending she’s friends with Mindy Kaling and Amy Poehler, eating absurd amounts of cheese, or listening to rock music at an appallingly loud volume. Sometimes all at once.

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Guest Post from the authors of Child Decoded

Inside the Book:

 

The last twenty years have seen a huge increase, not only in children with learning and behavior problems, but in children with bewildering combinations of them. These combinations can defy easy categorization and resist treatment. Figuring these children out can feel like trying to decrypt an especially complex code, without a cypher. Even professionals find it challenging.We have seen family after family exhausted, overwhelmed and confused about how to sort through all the data and figure out how to proceed. There is certainly no shortage of information out there. What seems to be missing is guidance on how to synthesize it to create a larger picture that gives parents a clearly sequenced path forward. This book presents a new kind of resource for a new kind of need. It includes: • Extensive checklists to help you see new possibilities and find avenues of support you may not have considered • Explanation of the hidden factors that may be worsening your child’s learning or behavior problems • Discussion of the difference between digging deeper for true causes and merely assigning diagnoses to the “tip of the iceberg” symptoms you are seeing • Descriptions of the major areas of developmental, learning and behavioral challenges, as well as common misdiagnoses. • Lots of useful ‘news you can use’ about what options are available to you, which practitioners do what, and what questions to ask along the way • Descriptions of both Western medicine and alternative medicine solutions • Sequence matters: helpful information on how to prioritize treatments in a complex situation • Stories of families who have been in the same trenches you have • Tips on how to work more productively with your child’s school; develop a plan of action that makes sense for your budget, your family’s schedule and your sanity; maintain a healthy connection with your child; and more! Written by over 20 professionals, Child Decoded is a thorough, must-have resource that any family with struggling children should consult!

 

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AMAZONGUEST POST:

Parenting a special needs child ain’t for the faint of heart. The overwhelm, the frustration, the exhaustion…it’s hard. I know. I’ve been there.

Since my own special needs son has just graduated from college, I’ve been thinking a lot about our journey with him. I’ve been talking to him about it, too, and some of his insights surprised me.

I can tell you every therapy we tried, every medical approach we used, every school support we fought for. Each was crucial. But, looking back from this vantage point, the little everyday things that saved our lives are less obvious. Here are three:

1. Acceptance. It sounds obvious, but I swear, everything got so much easier when I finally accepted the whole situation. My son was going to have good days and really bad ones, and would never have a ‘normal’ path, and would often take two steps forward, three steps back.

And there was absolutely nothing I could do about that. A bad day was neither a reflection of my parenting nor proof he wasn’t trying hard enough.  It was just the way we rolled in our world. My job was to find the next steps and to love the stuffing out of him, and to let go of any attachment to who I wished he was.

I don’t mean to make this sound easy, by the way. It was just necessary. I was a much better mother when I wasn’t railing against reality. And, he now tells me, he felt much safer and more able to cope when I was calmer about it all.

2. Find something your child loves just because he loves it. For my son, that thing was fencing. It’s an odd sport that he found when he was 10 and still excels at. After a weeklong summer camp intro, he took to it with an ease and passion that shocked us.

After a while, I could see what it was really giving him: a place to let go of all the therapies and pressure. He wasn’t “the kid being fixed” there. He was just himself, having fun. He really needed somewhere to be that.

3. Love ‘em up. This insight came from my son, and it completely blew me away. I hugged him constantly during our toughest years. Sometimes, it was the only thing I could think of to do. I also told him what I loved about him, and showed him daily that his creativity and goofy humor delighted me.

When I asked him recently what he thought his saving grace was during those difficult years, he gave me the sweetest smile and said, “I always knew I was loved.”

I focused mostly on finding answers for my son. That was a given. But when I look back, I think the most important thing I did was actually to focus on him – who he was under the struggles, what his world felt like, what he needed in order to keep going. You wear a lot of hats, as the parent of a special needs child. “Person who loves you more than anyone else on the planet and won’t let you forget it” is one hat you never, ever take off.

Meet the Authors:

Kim Gangwish has  been  practicing  in  the  fields  of  mental  health  and  applied physiology for the last 18 years. Ms. Gangwish specializes in a form of acupressure that focuses on  neurological  integration,  called  LEAP  (Learning  Enhancement  Acupressure  Program).  She works  with  both  children  and  adults  who  have  learning  or  sensory  issues,  or  mild  traumatic head injuries. Her passion for educating caregivers has led her to present at international health conferences,  educational  programs  for  school  districts,  and  parent  and  adoption  support organizations,  where  she  emphasizes  the  importance  of  exploring underlying  causal  factors that contribute to learning and sensory issues. Being an adoptive mother herself, Ms. Gangwish is  very  active  in  the  adoption  community.  She  has  written  an ongoing  column  in  Adoption Today  magazine  and  founded  a  non-profit  organization  that  supports  adopted  children  and their families through an integrated team of therapeutic professionals. Ms. Gangwish runs her practice,  The  Life  Enrichment  Center,  in both  Louisville  and  Denver,  Colorado.  Kim  is also  the founder    and    CTO    (Chief    Technology    Officer)    of    a    biomedical    company,    Genovus Biotechnologies  Inc.,  which  is  developing  a  peripheral  neurostimulation  device  to  help  people with degenerative  neuromuscular diseases. She  lives in Louisville  with her two sons and many animals. You can read more about her and her work at www.neural-integration.com.

Dr. Robin McEvoy is a developmental neuropsychologist practicing in Denver, Colorado. She evaluates and diagnoses a wide range of learning disabilities and learning needs in children, adolescents, and adults. She then works with the family to develop a treatment plan to  remediate  weaknesses  and  accentuate  strengths.  In  addition  to  her  private  practice,  Dr. McEvoy   is   an   assistant   professor   at   the   University   of   Colorado   Health   Sciences   Center. Although  evaluation  is  the  heart  of  her  work,  Dr.  McEvoy  also  loves  the  educational  process  - speaking  to  parents,  schools,  or  other  health  professionals  about  learning,  development,  and parenting  in  this  new  age  where  many  learning  and  developmental challenges  are  more frequent.

Dr.  McEvoy  and  her  daughter,  Tessa,  have  published  a  children’s  book, Buddy: A Story for Dyslexia. This book has a lovely endorsement from Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a leading authority in

the  field.  Proceeds from  the  book  are  being  used  to fund  reading  remediation for  low  income children. You can find the book at www.learningmoxie.com. You can read more about Robin McEvoy at her website www.robinmcevoy.com. She blogs about  learning  and  learning  challenges  at  www.learningmoxie.com.  You  can  follow  her  on Facebook  at  www.facebook.com/DrRobinMcEvoy  or  on  Twitter at  twitter.com/RobinMcEvoy. She will try to be fascinating.

Marijke Jones got her BA from Cornell University, and finally settled down in Colorado after living in Japan and traveling throughout Asia and other parts of the world. She has been a copy and developmental editor for over ten years and has worked on a number of manuscripts, McGraw-Hill textbooks, website content, and other miscellaneous projects during that time. She has also published essays, mostly about her experiences raising, homeschooling, and trying to figure out her twice exceptional son. Ms. Jones is passionate about helping families with struggling children find answers and peace of mind. She believes that for each thing a child can’t do, there is something amazing that he can do. A former therapist who specialized in trauma, she also believes that monitoring children’s emotional and mental health is every bit as important as remediating their learning issues. She lives with her incredibly patient husband in Louisville, Colorado, where she enjoys the beautiful Rocky Mountains and all they have to offer. Occasionally, her two adult children come home from college or Europe or wherever they have been having more adventures than she has.

——————

Tour Schedule

Monday, March 6 Book featured at Yah Gotta Read This Tuesday, March 7 Guest blogging at Write and Take FlightThursday, March 9 Book featured at Books, Dreams, Life Friday, March 10 Interviewed at Confessions of an Eccentric Bookaholic Monday, March 13 Book featured at Nicole's Book Musings Thursday, March 16 Guest blogging at The Book Czar Friday, March 17 Book featured at The Hype and the Hoopla Tuesday, March 21 Interviewed at As the Page Turns Thursday, March 23 Book featured at Inkslinger's Opus Friday, March 24 Book featured at My Bookish Pleasures Tuesday, March 28 Book reviewed at I'm Shelf-ish Wednesday, March 29 Book featured at Mello and June Thursday, March 30 Book featured at Just Us Book Blog

In the Spotlight: The Spirit of Love by the spirit of love known as glen

Title: THE SPIRIT OF LOVE
Author: the spirit of love, known as glen
Publisher: Aurora House
Pages: 196
Genre: Spirituality/Poetry

The Spirit of Love is a collection of short writings, poems and phrases written by a man who took himself into some of the darkest and most destructive depths that one can go with drug and alcohol addictions back in his early twenties.

The collection of writings contained within The Spirit of Love are the result of one man’s healing journey within himself and the deep questioning that has arisen from within it.

With the love, support and guidance of his dear friend Edwina, in helping to bring these writings from the handwritten scribbles on paper to how they are presented today, The Spirit of Love is a reminder that no matter how dark, desperate, alone, helpless or trapped one believes they may be, the sheer beauty of the perfection of life in its totality is silently and patiently living within us all, and its love is so powerful that it can heal anything that has come to pass.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

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Book Excerpt:

6.

Take me now so that I need never feel again

Screaming inside I keep everything in

Release me now so I may tear this skin from off my shell

For free can I not be from this living hell?

7.

Why are you afraid?

Swept along without giving a moment to stop

Why are you going to the next place you want to be?

What’s wrong with where you are now?

Is the next place going to be any different or better?

Funny how unwilling you have become to look

Can it be that bad inside?

Afraid to feel life no more

Oh, how the voice is clever

Feeding the prey so as not to be hunted.

9.

Staring at you the battle begins

Nightmare’s voice always wins

Fighting so strongly against my will

Oh, the insanity contained in a pill

Within gulp of water’s cup

Battle lost I’ve given up

Slowly the chemicals suffocate my brain

The next few hours surely insane.

10.

How can you label I and in turn yourself?

For labels change as frequently as the weather

I am changeless – eternal

Let your sight not fool you into a world of form

Enjoy thy magic and mystery

Play with it joyfully and compassionately

But see yourself not of it

Are you your job?

Is that the limit of your destiny?

Why do you choose to do what you do?

Is it really you doing it?

Look what the eternal search has brought

A searching with no end to wanting

That which you truly not need.

11.

Stop it, stop it, I hear you scream, the voice constant in its demands of you

But what can be done if broken you have become?

Bound to a meaningless death whilst your feet still walk

Bow to grace as freedom is you just in being

See the butterfly kiss the wind as a graceful dance

What have you become outside yourself?

Smash all mirrors as they do not allow you to see what lies beneath

Seven colours formed of white

Form holds the illusion together not wanting it to be seen

All that allows it to be is what’s in-between

No sense I make, so that your mind can move beyond the hours of 9 till 5

I lie timeless for you.

20.

Is mankind reflecting upon itself?

From and within the boundless nothingness that I Am

Nothing more or less than degrees of variation

Like a leaf throughout the seasons of its cycle

Come within so that I am released from form

And journey from stillness back to stillness

As infinite space and eternal grace dance together in the hands of thy children

Mention not a word of I, nor a thought, nor emotion, invisible I remain

See that star in your eye?

It is your world beneath your world

A diamond in the form of a stone

Belong to silence, cometh to existence through seed of breath, even and pure.

24.

Cannot you feel the spirit within her? Why? Why? Why?

You poison her veins with fluorescent venom

Yet still she gives you soil to grow your food

You shatter her body with each bomb that tears at her skin

Yet still she gives you air to breathe

Your chemical mind soaks away her pure clear blood

Yet still she gives you water to quench greed’s thirst

Great Mother Earth, you inspire me to a love that holds no enemy

Take not a moment more to cleanse your soul from our mistrust

Seeing you create your balance now

A new earth awaits your presence

And yet still you wish to give us abundance’s dance

Your wisdom singing peacefully within thy true self

A self of love, a selfless love

My weeping heart bleeds its last drop into your soil

Take it and send me to my grave with your earthy kiss

For you have earned your rest from the hand of man.

37.

Is thy being too simple for belief?

A simple being of love sets everything free

40.

For whilst thoughts, emotions, content, story and experience is a part of the journey, it is a mere ripple on the surface of the vast depthless ocean of thy being, of which I know nothing.

About the Author

At the peak of his destructive cycle glen was so consumed by addictions, that on any given day saw the abusive consumption of cocaine, MDMA powder, special K, ecstasy, crystal meth, marijuana, prescription drugs (anti-depressants, sleeping pills) and alcohol.

A time that saw him attempting and failing to out race police cars through the streets of a Melbourne suburb one night, to experiencing a near death experience while bleeding out from a glass injury when holidaying overseas, a time of daily self-harming with the prospect of suicide never being far out of reach.

However, through the unconditional love of his parents, glen found himself backpacking though South America where a collection of events and direct experiences with the local people and Mother Earth herself, triggered the beginning stages of what would later become known to him as the shattering and dissolving of the false identity of the illusionary mind-made-self and its “poor me” story.

An inner-journey that awakens the spirit of love, known as glen, to not being a personal identity as such but rather a way of being, a way of simplicity, a way of the heart, a way that embraces and dances with the perfection of the present moment like no other.

You can visit the author’s website at www.spiritoflove.com.au or his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/thespiritoflovebook.

Literary Fiction Book of the Week: The Investment Club by Doug Cooper

Title: THE INVESTMENT CLUB
Author: Doug Cooper
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Pages: 362
Genre: Literary/Upmarket Fiction

Forty million people visit Vegas every year but most never get past the strip. What about the people who live there? What brought them there? What keeps them there?

Told from the perspective of a seasoned blackjack dealer, The Investment Club tells the stories of a self-destructive, dwarf entrepreneur, a drug-addicted musical performer-turned-stripper, a retired, widowed New Jersey policeman, a bereaved, divorced female sportscaster, and a card-counting, former Catholic priest before and after their fateful meeting at the El Cortez Casino in downtown Vegas.

As the five learn the greatest return comes from investing in one another, their lives stabilize and take on new, positive directions. But their love and support for each other can take them only so far before they must determine the meaning and value of their own lives.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

 

First Chapter:

Chapter 1

Date: Friday, January 17, 2014                                                        Dow Jones Open: 16,408.02

           Never split tens.

           The words flashed in their eyes and formed on their lips. Nervous fingering of chips followed. Except for third base, the last, and most important, seat at the table. He controlled the fates of the other players, a role he seemed to enjoy. His stout digits remained steadfast, cupped over the stack of ten black chips measured to split the hand. Never had a doubt. Once he saw the house had a five of hearts, he knew his play.

My left hand slid to the shoe, eyes directed toward first base. “Twelve.”

The brim of her faded green military cap angled downward, concealing her eyes and half of her tawny face. Her hat more fashion than function, this girl had never served, at least in the armed forces. Her body, though, was all function. Lean and mean. Definitely put on this earth to move. It was just a question of if that was in the vertical or the horizontal.

She waved her hand over the cards, never lifting her gaze from the table. “I’ll stay. You’re going to bust.” She was there for one purpose: to make money. Played every night. Never for less than $25 per hand and often as high as $200 when she really got rolling. I wouldn’t say she was unfriendly or mean. Just had an edge to her. Wanted to be left alone and not have to talk to anyone.

Next to her in seat two, a burly man, about six foot two or three—somewhere in his late sixties— nodded approvingly. He had a half-inch gray flattop that with each tilt of his head revealed a thinning patch on top. “Good girl,” he said. “You don’t have to have great cards; just need the dealer to have worse ones.“ He plucked a red five-dollar chip off his stack and placed it next to his bet. Holding up his index finger, he said, “One card, down please.”

Sliding the card from the shoe without revealing the value, I said, “Down and dirty.” Directing my attention to his neighbor, I nodded at the seventeen in front of the surgically enhanced Barbie doll in seat three. “The ol’ mother-in-law’s hand.”

She furrowed her brow, barely wrinkling her taut forehead. “What does that mean?” It was obvious she didn’t know the game, but she wasn’t stupid either. Everything she did had a purpose. What she revealed at the table was exactly what she wanted the others to see to elicit the reaction she desired.

“It’s a seventeen,” I said, about to drop one of my standard lines, good at least a few times a night. “It’s like your mother-in-law. You want to hit it, but you can’t.”

“Well, I don’t have to worry about one of those.” Her eyes sank to her cards. “So do I hit or not?”

The burly, elderly man to her right said, “Always assume the dealer has a ten as the down card, sweetie. With the dealer showing five, you don’t want to hit because the house probably has fifteen and is going to bust.”

“Just let her play her hand, gramps,” the guy at third base said. Diminutive in stature—oh hell, I’ll just say it. He was a little person or dwarf or whatever the politically correct term is these days. He played with aggression and anger. Winning wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Acted like he deserved it. Like the world owed it to him. He banged back the remainder of his third cognac and motioned for the cocktail waitress to bring another one.

Nip-Tuck Barbie pushed her puffy lips out in a pout, waving her perfectly manicured fingers over her cards. “I’ll hold then.”

Seat four was all business. He was around fifty, black and distinguished, with a wiry frame. He had short salt-and-pepper hair on the sides and back that connected into a beard the same length but much thicker than the rest. Too methodical to be a pro, but he knew the game. He was firm and decisive. It was obvious he liked the strategy and analysis. My guess was accountant. His face was too kind to be a broker or a banker. Wasting no time, he pushed his fingers outward from his clenched fist over the cards. “I’m good with eighteen.”

The waitress delivered another cognac to the little guy at third base. He took a green twenty-five-dollar chip from his growing stack, which was almost as high as the one on his shoulder. He downed the drink in one gulp. “Bring me another,” he said. His eyes were drooping with each drink. He ran his hand through his wavy, reddish-brown hair and pushed the thousand-dollar black stack next to his bet. With his index and pinky fingers extended like a two-pronged fork, he said, “Split ’em.”

I tilted my head to alert the pit boss. “Checks play. Splitting tens.”

Gramps said, “Come on, junior. You’re going to take the bust card and screw the table.”

The pit boss walked over. “Splitting tens. Go ahead.”

I pulled the first card from the shoe, hesitating before revealing its identity. “You sure about this?”

He pressed his index finger repeatedly into the felt. “Flip the damn card.”

It was an ace. “Twenty-one.”

He pointed at the second ten. “Paint it.”

I pulled a queen from the shoe. “Split again?”

“Nah, I’m good with twenty,” he said. “I don’t want to be greedy.”

“Too late for that,” the Accountant in seat four said.

I knew what was going to happen before I even played my hand. I had seen it too many times before. One asshole screwing it up for everyone else. I revealed my down card. A king of spades. “Dealer has fifteen.”

The Accountant rubbed the bald patch on the crown of his head and shifted back in his chair. “Would’ve busted if you hadn’t split.”

“Come on, need a big one,” Lean and Mean at first base sneered.

I flipped the next card to add to my fifteen. An ace of clubs. “Sixteen,” I said, “Not going down easy.”

“Six or higher, six or higher,” Gramps said, standing from his chair.

I pulled the next card, peeking under the corner to delay their unfortunate fate before flipping a three of hearts. “House has nineteen.”

I scooped Lean and Mean’s last four green chips from the bet circle.

She ripped her hat off in disgust, her thick black hair and crescent eyes now visible, and glared at Junior. “You’re such a dick.”

I placed my hand on Gramps’s down card.

He pleaded for a ten. “Monkey, monkey, monkey.”

I turned over a six of diamonds. “Seventeen.” I snagged the two red chips from his failed double and redeposited them into the house bank. Returning to Nip-Tuck Barbie, in one motion I collected her chips and also seat four’s. “Another seventeen and eighteen, not enough to beat the nineteen.”

Greedily rubbing his hands together, Junior said, “But my twenty-one and twenty are. Daddy about to get paid!”

I pushed two stacks of one thousand to match his bets. “Twenty black going out.”

The pit boss approved the payout.

“That’s it for me,” Lean and Mean said. “I’m not wasting any more money playing with this jackoff.”

“Me, too,” Gramps said and pushed his thirty-eight fifty to the center to cash in. “I’m done.”

“Quit your bitching,” Junior said, tipping the waitress fifty for the new cognac.

“But we all would’ve won if you hadn’t split,” Gramps said.

Junior tossed two of the blacks back to me. “Give me some green.”

I measured two stacks of four green chips. “Check change. Two black coming in.”

He combined the stacks and tossed four green at Lean and Mean and one each at the other three players, giving the last one to me. “That ought to cover it, you bunch of cry babies. That’s why they call it gambling.”

Lean and Mean flipped the chips back to him. “I don’t need your charity.”

He pushed them to the middle of the table. “Well somebody take them because I don’t want them.” His eyes scanned the players, stopping on Lean and Mean. She put her hat back on and pulled the brim low again. He said, “Heeey, wait a second. I know you. You work down at OGs, don’t you? You and your girlfriend soaked me for about five grand one night.”

OGs was Olympic Gardens, a midlevel strip club on Las Vegas Boulevard between downtown and the strip. Midlevel because it’s not as swanky as the upper-tier places like Spearmint Rhino or Sapphire, but it’s also not the bottom rung like you walked into a methadone clinic the day after New Year’s. OGs biggest advantages are the location right on LV Boulevard and having male and female dancers to cater to both genders. The men perform upstairs and the women downstairs, which was obviously set up by a man, because that’s how most men want to operate in their relationships as well. If patrons want some seediness without feeling the need to bathe in hand sanitizer after leaving, then OGs is the place.

Lean and Mean snatched her purse off the back of her chair and slung it over her shoulder. “I don’t know you.”

“Well, you should. We spent about four hours in the VIP room. Your name’s, um…Faith, and your girlfriend, oh, what was her name? She was a real rock climber, that one. She had that chalk bag of coke in her underwear and kept bumping me up while she was dancing. Damn, what was her name? I kept calling her Dora the Explorer.”

Gramps said, “Just drop it. The lady said she don’t know you.”

“What are you, her pimp?” Junior gulped more cognac.

“That’s OK,” she said. “I was just leaving.” She turned and angled toward the door. Gramps followed her.

Nip-Tuck Barbie squirmed in her chair. “Geez, I never knew blackjack had so much drama.”

Junior picked up the hundred dollars in green that he had tried to give Lean and Mean from the middle of the table. “For someone who works for tips, you’d think she’d be more appreciative.” He tossed them to me. “I’m sure you’ll put these to good use.”

And that was how I met these five broken people—a drug-addict singer-turned-stripper; a widowed, retired New Jersey police officer; an alcoholic, divorced sportscaster; a card-counting, ex–Catholic priest; and a self-destructive, dwarf entrepreneur—who all somehow managed to wander into the El Cortez and sit at my table on a random Tuesday night.

I haven’t always been a blackjack dealer, but I have always lived in Vegas—fifty-seven years. Have held just about every hospitality job this town has to offer, from parking cars to cooking food to serving drinks. What I’ve never done is been a big winner. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my share of winnings, but they don’t even come close to the losses. For every night in the black, there were two or three in the red, and the red numbers always seem to be higher than the black ones. Don’t let anyone tell you different. They might say they’re even, but they’re well south of even; it’s just a question of how far. That’s why I gave it up years ago and switched to this side of the table. I can guarantee you I walk out of the casino up every night.

I’ve tried dealing other games, but there’s just something about blackjack. I like how communal the game is. I like how strangers sit down and in no time will be fist-bumping and high-fiving. Of course there are a fair share of squabbles as well, like the one I just told you about. You see, a lot of players think they’re just playing their individual hands, that they should trust their guts. But the good ones know there are rules and every decision at the table affects everyone else. I know the math says different, that each play is an independent event and will help others just as often as it hurts. But I’m talking about the bigger play, the energy at the table, the stuff that flows through and carries us all.

Yeah, I’ve seen a lot in my years flipping cards. Seen players win fifteen hands in a row and lose just as many; be down to their last ten dollars and walk away up a thousand; win five grand and slink away with their pockets turned inside out. Won’t say I’ve seen it all, though. Just when I think I have, a night like that Tuesday happens, and a story like I’m about to tell you unfolds.

Now I’ll admit I wasn’t present for all the stuff I’m about to share. Some of it I was and some of it was told to me, and, well, some of it I just filled in the blanks, and you’re going to have to trust me because in this job I’ve learned how to read people and recognize problems before they happen: the colleagues headed for an affair, the social drinker on the road to alcoholism, and the newlyweds who won’t make it to their fifth anniversary. Amazing what people will reveal across three feet of felt. They think they’re in control, but putting a stack of their hard-earned money on the table loosens up more than their wallets. It triggers their vulnerability, and that opens up the vault to all their secrets. I just have to watch and listen, like reading an open ledger. Most tell more than I ever care to know, as much by what they don’t say as what they do.

Dow Jones Close: 16,458.56

About the Author

Doug Cooper is the author of the award-winning novel Outside In and The Investment Club available October 2016. He has a BS in Mathematics Education from Miami University and a MA in American Studies from Saint Louis University. Always searching, he has traveled to over twenty countries on five continents, exploring the contradictions between what we believe and how we act in the pursuit of truth, beauty, and love. Originally from Port Clinton, Ohio, he has also called Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit, New York, and Oslo, Norway home. He now lives in Cleveland working on his third novel Focus Lost.

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